Twitter Shares Soar Almost 75% To $44.90 Following Listing on NYSE

Twitter shares soared to almost three-quarters (73%) higher than their initial list price of $26 each following the site's initial public offering (IPO) on the stock market yesterday ( November 11).

After its first day as a public company, the share values of the micro-blogging site soared above $50 at one point, before ending the day at $44.90.

There was a long delay before listing started with New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) Euronext executive vice president and head of global markets, Scott Cutler, admitting the process was not a simple one, with a number of important decisions needing to be made.

He said: "The previous longest open was 10:17 and that was for the Visa IPO in 2007.

"But again, we're not focused on trying to rush to get this stock open quickly. This is a natural process where buyers and sellers come together and you want to open at the right price and a price that quite frankly is sustained in the aftermarket."

Patrick Stewart was at (NYSE) to ring the opening bell for Twitter and was joined by a representative of the Boston police department and nine-year old, Vivienne Harr, the founder of the Make A Stand lemonade company which raises awareness and is trying to help bring an end to child slavery. The trio was apparently chosen to represent Twitters key influencers.

Co-founders Ev Williams and Jack Dorsey became instant billionaires thanks to the listing. With Williams owning 59.6m shares, worth a staggering $2.5bn and Dorsey owning 23.4m shares, valued at just over $1bn. Although in Dorsey's case, due to his involvement in other projects including Square, he could already be considered a billionaire.

However, a number of analysts have still raised concerns over the fact Twitter does not have a clear business strategy at present and also does not make a profit. Despite revenues doubling to $168.6m last quarter, the firm still saw losses increase from $21.6m year on year, to $64.6m.

For now though, Twitter continues to capitalise on the buzz its IPO has created among those in the technology and social media marketing worlds, and with a performance beating Facebook's rocky launch last year, things certainly look up for the micro-blogging platform.